‘Power Book II: Ghost’: Michael Rainey Jr. Credits a Lot of His Career to ‘BMF’s Russell Hornsby
Michael Rainey Jr. has starred as Tariq St. Patrick in Power Book II: Ghost for years. He began playing the character in Power and now leads his very own spinoff series. Though he’s been anchored by many incredible actors over the years, Rainey credits much of his career to BMF actor Russell Hornsby.
Here’s what he revealed.
‘Power Book II: Ghost’ Tariq actor on his character
When it comes to portraying Tariq, Rainey has grown up with his character. However, as season 3 of Power Book II: Ghost presses forward, he finds major comfort in the familiarity of the character.
“I kind of feel myself very comfortable in Tariq’s shoes,” he told Cassius Life. “I’ve been playing the character for a long time, but now I find myself in a rhythm to where I’m not doing so much figuring out. And I kind of have the blueprint down pact.”
Michael Rainey Jr. credits ‘BMF’ actor Russell Hornsby for much of his career
Executive producer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson is credited with putting his stamp on several Starz series. No only does he work on the Power Universe, he also works on BMF. Interestingly enough, Rainey credits BMF actor Russell Hornsby with his career. Hornsby portrays patriarch Charles Flenory on the Detroit-set series.
“My first movie in America, shout out to Russell Hornsby, yo, he’s responsible for a lot of my career,” he revealed on The Crew Has It. “I had a scene with him on ‘LUV ‘. We had a few scenes, and in between takes, he called Andrew Rogers, bro. So he made a call to them, bro. He was like, yo y’all gotta come to pick this kid up, I don’t know how here’s his mother’s number.”
It looks like this worked out for both Rainey and Horsnby.
Michael Rainey Jr. cutting ties with Tariq
At this point, Rainey has portrayed Tariq for much of his life. He even relates to his character to some degree. “Tariq always, like I said, where I relate to Tariq in a way where he’s just observing everything, and he like keeps everything he needs to observe before he needs to make his move,” he said on The Crew Has It. “Sometimes he doesn’t and moves too fast, which comes with being young, but he’s three steps ahead like Kanan taught him.”
However, because most fans only know and see the actor as Tariq, he knows he will have to cut ties with the character at some point.
“It’s definitely a thought in my head a lot,” he told Cassius Life. “With the time that I’ve taken to devote myself to this character, a lot of people, the audience, they haven’t seen me on the screen in a different space in a while, so that’s definitely a thought in my head. But as I said, you just got to keep working and obviously just knowing yourself and being confident in your work and knowing your talent and knowing what you can do with your talent.”
